inspector’s expression that morning was one of stubborn lugubriousness.
Even without the scowl, his face beneath the badged cap was one that seemed perpetually irritated. His twisted red hair and bushy eyebrows gave him a somewhat windy appearance, and his wiry
frame was the spring set to trap any criminal foolish enough to underestimate him. Unpopular he may have been, but other policemen spoke of him as ratcatchers are wont to speak of a champion
terrier: if not with fondness, then with a certain respect for his fortitude.
The two constables sitting facing him in the galley held their oars across their laps and were pleased to look out among the shipping rather than at their recently appointed superior.
‘There, sir – can you see?’ said one of the constables. ‘There is a wherry towing another, both with passengers. Shall we row upon them?’
‘I believe the security of the nation will be unharmed if we overlook that particular crime,’ replied Mr Newsome.
The constable knew well enough not to respond, and tried to avoid the expression of his fellow sitting behind him. The galley remained tethered to the chains under the arch, gurgles and
wave-slaps echoing strangely about them as the stream sucked past the mossy stonework.
‘Sir?’ offered the second constable. ‘Two ferries going there through the fourth arch at the same time, sir? Should we row?’
‘No, constable. We will not row. There has been no accident. No lives have been lost in that infringement of the shipping regulations.’
The wake of the ferries reached them and rocked the boat so that the oars rattled thickly in the oarlocks.
‘I say, Inspector,’ began the first constable who had spoken, ‘did you hear of the incident at Waterloo-bridge earlier this morning? A fellow of that division told me of it as
I came on duty.’
‘What incident? Another suicide?’
‘Possibly . . . but there has been talk of murder. A man had his throat cut in the fog before dawn. I heard that Eldritch Batchem was appointed by the Bridge Company. They say he is the
greatest detec—’
‘I will thank you not to use the word “detective” in the same breath as “Batchem”. The man is a nuisance and unworthy of the name,’ said Mr Newsome.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘A murder, did you say?’
‘Yes, sir. I heard that no weapon was found on the victim, but also that nobody else was on the bridge at the time.’
‘Curious, but it rather sounds like a suicide to me. The d—— river absolutely reeks today, does it not?’
‘No more than usual, sir,’ answered the second constable.
‘It is quite putrescent. Rotten eggs, mud, tar . . . and excrement.’
‘As I say, sir: the usual.’
The inspector reflected yet again on how many aspects of the river he despised. The black-brown water was the least of them: that frigid stew of hospital refuse, slaughterhouse effluvia, street
dung, city sewage, manufactory poisons and the saturated souls of innumerable suicides. Its very surface was variously a swirling solution of mud, a rainbow-hued slick from the gas works’
outflow, or an animal-corpse bath.
This magnificent Port of London, so called, was to him but a conglomeration of irritants almost beyond tolerance. From the bridge down to Horseferry Pier, it was nothing but a dense glut of
ships too diverse to enumerate, a passage barely three hundred feet wide winding between their pressing hulls. Not merely ‘boats’ – as his constables had been quick to inform him
– but colliers, schooners, punts, barges, smacks, skiffs, cutters, lighters, hoys, barks, merchantmen, wherries, and sloops.
No doubt there was one hundred million pounds of cargo in the warehouses of that district. No doubt it was the richest and largest free port upon the earth. But the marine
districts of Wapping, Shadwell, Limehouse, Poplar, Blackwall and Rotherhithe were nevertheless sinks of such notorious vice and infamy that no amount of precious ambergris or attar of
Even without the scowl, his face beneath the badged cap was one that seemed perpetually irritated. His twisted red hair and bushy eyebrows gave him a somewhat windy appearance, and his wiry
frame was the spring set to trap any criminal foolish enough to underestimate him. Unpopular he may have been, but other policemen spoke of him as ratcatchers are wont to speak of a champion
terrier: if not with fondness, then with a certain respect for his fortitude.
The two constables sitting facing him in the galley held their oars across their laps and were pleased to look out among the shipping rather than at their recently appointed superior.
‘There, sir – can you see?’ said one of the constables. ‘There is a wherry towing another, both with passengers. Shall we row upon them?’
‘I believe the security of the nation will be unharmed if we overlook that particular crime,’ replied Mr Newsome.
The constable knew well enough not to respond, and tried to avoid the expression of his fellow sitting behind him. The galley remained tethered to the chains under the arch, gurgles and
wave-slaps echoing strangely about them as the stream sucked past the mossy stonework.
‘Sir?’ offered the second constable. ‘Two ferries going there through the fourth arch at the same time, sir? Should we row?’
‘No, constable. We will not row. There has been no accident. No lives have been lost in that infringement of the shipping regulations.’
The wake of the ferries reached them and rocked the boat so that the oars rattled thickly in the oarlocks.
‘I say, Inspector,’ began the first constable who had spoken, ‘did you hear of the incident at Waterloo-bridge earlier this morning? A fellow of that division told me of it as
I came on duty.’
‘What incident? Another suicide?’
‘Possibly . . . but there has been talk of murder. A man had his throat cut in the fog before dawn. I heard that Eldritch Batchem was appointed by the Bridge Company. They say he is the
greatest detec—’
‘I will thank you not to use the word “detective” in the same breath as “Batchem”. The man is a nuisance and unworthy of the name,’ said Mr Newsome.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘A murder, did you say?’
‘Yes, sir. I heard that no weapon was found on the victim, but also that nobody else was on the bridge at the time.’
‘Curious, but it rather sounds like a suicide to me. The d—— river absolutely reeks today, does it not?’
‘No more than usual, sir,’ answered the second constable.
‘It is quite putrescent. Rotten eggs, mud, tar . . . and excrement.’
‘As I say, sir: the usual.’
The inspector reflected yet again on how many aspects of the river he despised. The black-brown water was the least of them: that frigid stew of hospital refuse, slaughterhouse effluvia, street
dung, city sewage, manufactory poisons and the saturated souls of innumerable suicides. Its very surface was variously a swirling solution of mud, a rainbow-hued slick from the gas works’
outflow, or an animal-corpse bath.
This magnificent Port of London, so called, was to him but a conglomeration of irritants almost beyond tolerance. From the bridge down to Horseferry Pier, it was nothing but a dense glut of
ships too diverse to enumerate, a passage barely three hundred feet wide winding between their pressing hulls. Not merely ‘boats’ – as his constables had been quick to inform him
– but colliers, schooners, punts, barges, smacks, skiffs, cutters, lighters, hoys, barks, merchantmen, wherries, and sloops.
No doubt there was one hundred million pounds of cargo in the warehouses of that district. No doubt it was the richest and largest free port upon the earth. But the marine
districts of Wapping, Shadwell, Limehouse, Poplar, Blackwall and Rotherhithe were nevertheless sinks of such notorious vice and infamy that no amount of precious ambergris or attar of
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